How Can I Stop Item Hoarding In Games? 

“I’m out of MP” “Then use an ether” “But you can’t buy ethers” “IT’S THE FINAL BATTLE” “But I only have 85 of them”

I think some people hoard consumables without even trying just due to how the UI discourages using items. The "item" or "bag" button tends to be as close to the bottom of the list as possible, and then you have to scroll through items to find the right one. Combine the sheer number of button presses with the fact it normally takes your turn in applicable RPGs, and the common-sense response to a stat-debuff or low hp can often be "this isn't an issue if I hit the enemy hard enough and end the fight." A lot of the items players do use frequently, like the Estus flask or equivalent blood vials, are hotbar'd from the word go. Games like darkest dungeon give your inventory of consumables ample screen space and ease of access which can make you much more inclined to use them. There's nothing too unique about these consumables, it's just how they're contextually presented.

Here’s one more: bad item descriptions cause hoarding. There have been a few Final Fantasies where I get one battle item that “deals a lot of damage”. I don’t have extras to test it out, so I save it. But when I use it on the final boss, it does maybe 50 damage. If it told me it deals about 50 damage, I could have used it in the very next fight and at least have enjoyed the visual effects. Healing items are even worse, because I’ll use them in an emergency, only to restore a measly number of HP and consequently get wiped out. (I’m looking at you, “lapis,” whatever you are.)

Item usefulness is probably one of my biggest hoarding hurdles. "Potions heal 100 hp!" "But I have 3500 max hp. Why are these things still dropping?" "Use a green herb to heal!" "But what if there's a red herb around the corner? What if there's also a YELLOW!"

Mother 3 has a great anti hoarding system. Every character has a limited inventory and each item takes up one spot. You also get items consistently enough that you’ll use old items to make space

“Hoarding is a pitfall” flashbacks to earlier animal crossing games where I would hoard pitfalls.

"This potion heals 50 hit points". When you have 100 hit points: Oh nice, it's half my life. When you have 1000 hit points: what's the point of using them? A few recent Final Fantasies resolve that problem by just giving percentages instead. It also doesnt make item kinda useless in the late-game.

At first glance, I thought this was an actual self-help video for the players hoarding the items and was like „Yeah, I could use that.“

"No, i need to save all these recovery and power up items when i get to the final boss!!!" ...The final boss is a QTE.

We’ve got to remember that gamers gravitate towards the most likely chance of success, not the most fun one. If a situation can be solved without using up a finite resource, they’re gonna do that.

Astral Chain had a really nice anti hoarding system by having items in each chapter that disappear from your inventory at the end of the chapter. They're gonna disappear, so you might as well use them!

One way hoarding manifests in Breath of the Wild is finding yourself constantly using the weakest available weapon and shield (or the Master Sword once you have it) rather than risk not having the strong ones when you need them.

Game : "you can sell any item you don't need" Every enemy drop useless item A Player : sell every item A except 5 for backup if needed 3 hours later.... Game : "you need to gather 10 item A to continue sidequest" No enemy drop item A until before final dungeon

I love the item descriptions in spiritfarer. When you find items in crates or while fishing, some of them specifically say "should be sold", so you never wonder whether you'll need them for crafting later.

Games that have multiple "final bosses" at the end sequence don't help. I've been traumatized by using my consumables too early, only to find there are more levels or bosses. Pretty much never used megalixirs or somas unless I'm on a second playthrough.

Here's a subtle thing that I've noticed: suppose you have Potions that heal 50 hp, High Potions for 200, and Mega Potions for 500. Assuming these can be purchased, you'll typically see that the higher-level items end up more expensive per hp, which makes it feel like a waste to use them if you don't REALLY REALLY need it. You can use low-level potions to top up after battle, after all. Instead, try flipping that script. If you make more powerful potions MORE money-efficient, you encourage their use! As long as you're hurt enough to not waste any of the healing, you want to use the most powerful items in AND out of battle, and the lower-level items are relegated to topping-up duty and backup healing. Which is FINE, because if you're at the point in the game where a normal potion is only worth a tiny fraction of your total hp, you're not going to bother with them during gameplay anyway and they're ultimately just "press the button 100 times to heal up after battle" instead of "press the button twice". Now if only you can convince that potion-seller to part with his strongest potions...

"Quick use a potion!" "But we might need it later!" "We have 1 HP, and it's the final boss!!!"

I hoard items in games due to a weird state of "I *don't* need this." What I meant by that is, when I have to use a item, I feel like it's fixing a mistake I could've otherwise learned from, it can make me feel dishonorable using items (especially if they're VERY useful) regardless of the situation. I have broken this self-imposed accidental rule a couple of times, sure, like when I used a one time full party heal in Persona 5 that I got at the *start of the game*... and didn't use it until 135+ hours in.. at the final boss. If I didn't hold onto that particular item for that long, though, I wouldn't have been able to beat the final boss on my first try. Playing Paper Mario recently, I try to hold off from using items in battle at all so I can try to play better without them, but it's a vicious loop of always never sometimes using items.

I love Kingdom Hearts 2 and 3's approach to MP. Your MP recharges when you run out, but ONLY when you run out, which means that if you want to get back to full MP, you have to cast more spells instead of less. Furthermore, Cure always costs your remaining MP, so if you're low on HP and you have half your MP left, you're encouraged to try to sneak in a few more spells before healing, since the more MP you have left when you use Cure, the more MP you "waste".

Goes a long way in speedruns as well: In RPGs, "Boost" Items often are quite a lot more powerful than people realize. In Speedruns (Be it Pokémon or Hyperdimension Neptunia), "Boost" Items are often used to cheese the game, throw its Balance out the window and just beat the game on a really low level. Why can speedrunners do this? Because they know the exact place and time to use the items properly without "running out". It makes speedrun routing interesting, but that usually assumes you know the game in and out, which a casual playthrough often doesn't have. As the video mentions, MHW does a good job of informing the player of where to get items if they need more and i don't think it has any non-renewable resources. A simple step in the right direction might be telling the player "This item is renewable." or "This item only exists x times in this world!". The latter would encourage hoarding, but tells the person if they are good to use up their current supply because there are another 200 they can get later down the line.

I have to disagree about being able to keep less items makes it more likley to use those items. I've always found it to be the exact opposite. If i can only hold 5 of an item, and I do not know when I can next get another of that item I will horde it all the more for the few chances when I REALLY need it. Where as if I have 70 of an item I feel far more comfortable using it as there is not a scarcity of it. The best way to deal with hording in my mind is to make all the items far more available and affordable so if you use that item its no big deal I'll grab another for a pittance. Though this can break difficulty depending on the game.

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone acknowledge the Persona Franchise when it comes to anti-hoarding behavior. Because any amount of time in the dungeon takes only one Timeslot in the game's time system, it encourages players to actively stay in the dungeons for as long as possible, so that they can spend more timeslots out of the dungeon getting additional story, or making themselves and their allies stronger. Because of this, when you're running low on resources in a dungeon, you start to look at your stockpile of consumables as a way to extend your time in the dungeon, rather than to extend your time in a bossfight.

"Hi everyone, my name is Brad and I've been item hoarding in RPGs for 15 years..."

I just like seeing the "99" next to everything. In FF I do everything in my power to just use magic and never use my items so they can stay at their cap or keep building them up.

Games where you lose all the consumables you used after a game over really encourage hoarding too. Like in Mother 3, after your party faints and you reload the save, you lose everything you used up during a battle. Though unlike a lot of other games, it's balanced out in Mother 3 by a general abundance of most usable items.

I like how in Sekiro, divine grass is really useful, but there's literally 2 of it in the entire game, so there's never a situation where it's useful enough to outweigh the risk. Same with the bundled jizo statue and dragon's blood droplet.

I think my favorite is the Dark Souls/regenerating resource thing. One of the problems that encourages hoarding is that if you're already struggling to get through a thing, and you use a consumable, it's gone and your next attempt is -even harder- or impossible without grinding or something because now you don't have it. Regenerating resources encourages experimentation because there's no 'cost' outside of this specific attempt(or stage, or encounter). Coming from a tradition of tabletop gaming, the same is true. Regenerating bonuses often see more use from players than tasty 'use once and it's gone' things cause it's never the right time. Players are more open to using what you give them and engaging with whatever item use mechanic there is if items are either plentiful or regenerating.

One of my favorite anti-hoarding techniques is to make it easier to get the items if you have fewer of them. If it's noticeable, it ends up giving you a soft cap, and it feels less wasted than a hard cap

Another example of hoarding I've seen is on a more micro level: Holding on to powerful abilities with a cooldown "just in case." Even though the ability may be infinite use, the idea of not having it for an emergency that may never come may drive some players to never use them at all. I play a healer in FFXIV, and the biggest thing that helped me improve was realizing that I should get over this behavior, that using these cooldowns now means I have a better chance of NOT getting into a dangerous situation later, and that if I only use them during a clear emergency they may not be enough to salvage it anyway.

Final Fantasy has another problem: elixirs are often non-renewable. Related to the point on Dark Souls, but not exactly the same. There is a number of them in the game, and that's it. If I'm in a situation where "I could need it more later", I should be able to say, "Well, I can always grind for another if I really have to." That little extra push would go a long way to making the decision to use the item.

DON'T have items that are "Use to win." In no instance where I used a powerful item correctly did I feel clever or smart. It feels shallow, like I robed myself of a challenge. Also items that are also necessary and finite aren't fun either. The Divine Confetti in Sekiro is basically REQUIRED to fight some key bosses. The confetti is a rare drop early in the game that allows full damage to be dealt to spirit type enemies, who are a very common type of boss by the way! Its finality means there are only so many proper attempts one can make at a boss before grinding for more. It could of been a recharging item like the anti curse potion but no. And to add insult the game gives you the ability to buy more AFTER beating the hardest spirit enemy in the game!

5:34 I feel like there's no reason I should get the reference for "what am I saving fooooor!?" but I did

Games like Escape from Tarkov and Hunt Showdown have a hoarding issue we call Gear Fear When you go into a match, if you die, your gear is lost permanently. Winning gets you money to buy more weapons and items, but a lot of new players are too scared to spend their money on good gear. So they hoard all their funds and store all the good gear they get and never use it because if they die, it's gone.

"the elite 4 using full restores is bs" -me, shaking nervously as 20 full restores sit in my bag untouched

I started hoarding in games due to a little game called The Legend of the Dragoon which only allowed you to carry 32 Items total for the ENTIRE 4 DISC GAME. After that If I can pick something up and keep it for later I do.

A great anti-hording technique in games with crafting is a Wishlist. In Moonlighter, as long as you have 1 item to craft something, you can add it to your wishlist, and after that, any item needed to craft that will be marked with a star. You can wishlist as much stuff as you want, so you may just wishlist a whole weapon-progression tree and save anything you need in advance, but sell/use everything else.

The Precipice of Darkness series had an interesting take on RPG items in its later entries- items refilled to their max after each battle. Finding a single potion in the overworld was a big deal because that meant you could use one more potion in battle, which itself would regenerate. Combined with the fact that all battles were predetermined encounters, it made each of them almost like an HP management puzzle.

One thing that it help is keep just a few type of itens. Instead of a potion that heals 100 points of HP, it heals 30% of HP, so it is still useful later in the game. Or limiting other resources, so you have to use items.

The main way I try to temper my hoarding is thinking about it in terms relative to how many I have. Example, maybe I have 4 Elixers, and I'm contemplating using one, I'd ask "Am I okay with using 25% of my stock". It's clear how impactful using the item actually is. If you have a decent amount, you aren't losing much value in using it, so might as well. Of course it's all relative to the most extreme case, "When do you use the last one", but that's so far from hoarding that I don't think it really needs much consideration as being an issue. In the case that it's *known* that there's only one, you'll have to use the last one eventually, and if you can potentially get another, no harm in saving it.

I find that having the consumable in question be fairly easy to replace solves hoarding for me. Remnant from the ashes for instance, aside from a few items in particular, all the consumable largely only need scrap to replace. So I just stop by the store when I'm out of bandages or bloodwort, or ammo boxes

I like how potion management done in Slay the Spire. By default you have just 3 spots for potions, so if you don't use them regularly and find a potion that you like more than you currently have, one of the potion is wasted.

I really like this style of video, presenting a game design problem, showing examples of games which fail to solve it, others which succeed or avoid it entirely and then analyzing why for each example. Pretty nice video overall !

You can buy Thing Stickers from a toad in the town btw. He's to the left of the area where you transform your things into usable stickers. They really should have done a better job at telling people about that option.

In Omori, battles are hard enough that using items is often a great option. For example, some bosses try to gain an advantage by manipulating party members' emotions, so using the right item can turn the tide of battle.

I recently stopped hoarding branches in Animal Crossing New Horizons because my storage space is limited and branches can be shaken out of trees infinitely and now I'm always short on them and i need to 'grind'' shake the trees, so I started hoarding them again

Limited inventory can actually be detrimental, especially by having items appear much faster than players could use. And it still might cause a player to throw away a rare item because they already had one.

"hoarding behavior goes away in roguelikes" Could you send my brain an email about that or something because I will cling tooth and nail onto any and all consumables possible until I'm against the final boss, even if it makes my run that much more painful.

The same issues are with "per-rest spells" in CRPGs. I always find myself holding onto my spells way too long cause I never know when I will be able to get them back or when I might absolutely need them.

A fairly easy way to encourage rare item use in a classic JRPG is to just stock them in shops for high prices, or make them less rare enemy drops later in the game. Simply letting the player know that a certain consumable item can eventually be obtained infinitely will relieve a lot of the pressure to hoard.

I feel the Tales of games kinda have the wrong idea when it comes to items since yea, they do have rather low hard limits on what you can carry, but at the same time, they actively discourage using items in battle since it gives you a Grade penalty for every item that you use

Me and weapons in fire emblem have this dynamic. Unless i can freely buy/repair a weapon i rarely use it. A lot of the early games in the series have a early joining paladin that comes with a silver lance. Said silver lance will always rot in my inventory until i can actually buy silver weapons. Three houses thankfully let me do just that and repair every weapon in the game using common resources. Except the legendary weapons. Those require is special resource you have to farm: as a result the lance of ruin was sitting in my convoy from chapter 5 till the final map on my blue lions run.

I was really happy that Witcher 3 took a note from Dark Souls and made all potions refreshable for just one strong alkohol, but made me have an inventory full of ingridients in case the next stage of the potion would require it.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 had an interesting system; once you ventured out to non-story islands and surveyed them completely, you had access to infinite of two crafting items specific to that island, like stone or iron. From that point on you never had to worry about going to get more to make a specific block or piece of equipment. Beyond that you could spend islander devotion points to re-purchase any item in the game.

Horizon Zero Dawn exemplifies hoarding beautifully with its health regen systems. On the one hand you have your medicine puch, which you can refill relatively quickly but is limited. On the other, you have health potions, which are rare consumable items. Guess which I never used? The added bonus of the medicine pouch is that needing to look for herbs to refill it promotes exploration, which is super satisfying in the beautiful world of Horizon Zero Dawn.

I actually enjoy hoarding as a player? Like, the feel of having 80+ elixirs gives me peace of mind that I just can't get from real life.

The Animal Crossing storage footage hit me pretty hard. I have almost 300 stones in my storage that I should probably sell most of

item hoarding made games incredibly stressful when I was a kid (and I was an RPGs fan, too) and letting go of that desire to hoard made a lot of them a lot more enjoyable so this is actually a personal growth tool

I really like the solution used in Astral Chain. You have two inventories composed of field items, and normal items. Field items have a cap of 99 each, but you lose all of them at the end of the chapter, so you're encouraged to use all of them before then. Even if you save every item you find that chapter until the boss, the games high difficulty means the fight doesn't become a cakewalk just because you hoarded. Normal can be kept between missions, but have much lower caps, typically from 3-9. This means you'll want to use some of your stock to avoid wasting any new items you pick up. It's a neat way to give the player a good amount of expendable items, while also allowing them to strategically bring some of their favorites to a difficult part of the game.

Item hoarding sometimes makes me feel all powerful. As long as I'm paying attention, at times I overestimate myself and take on bosses I don't realize I'm up against a super boss and I'm both not strong enough and I'm wasting time delaying the inevitable.

"Xenoblade Chronicles has no items to hoard" [Laughs in colony 6]

I remember one interesting way to discourage hoarding (purely in a long term sense) was a when I was playing dark wood (by no means the only game that does this but I remember it in particular) and the item stash from the first part of the game wouldn’t carry over to the second, forcing players to consider only the essentials when transitioning to the new zone. Even though resources were still somewhat generous in the new area, that limitation meant that suddenly the player had to prioritize and kick the hoarding they’d done up to this point. It also discourages excessive hoarding on any future playthroughs as the player knows that they can’t keep everything after that point, which I think is an interesting way of doing things.

Glad to see clear descriptions of how design choices influence these behaviors. Incentives to hoard have often led to me spending a lot of time in inventory management, which is rarely fun. Though I have to disagree on roguelikes as a category that discourages hoarding. You've clearly never seen one of us item-hoarders play Nethack.

2:38 is when the promo ends.

The Witcher 3 has an interesting relationship with hoarding. Crafting potions and runes is pretty important to the game, and it isn't clear where to get the components you need for recipes. This results in players picking up any crafting component they can find that isn't nailed to the floor. The game even has an item bank to keep your components once you have too many for your inventory. This would lead to a hoarding disaster, but the game fixes it in a couple of interesting ways. One is that crafting components are valuable in game, and gold can be hard earned. Sometimes you just need to sell that sapphire dust so that you can get a recipe for better armor. Another is that potions only need to be crafted once. I remember in Skyrim you would often hoard crafted consumables like potions because you want to use them at the best time. But in the Witcher 3, just meditating while having some alcohol on stock will replenish all of your potions. This makes potions fun to use, because once the hard work of crafting them is done with, you can restock them with one of the cheapest and most common items in the game. My experience in the Witcher 3 is that I will hoard all crafting items for a little while, I will find a cool recipe I want to complete, sell down the components I don't need, and get a good, reusable item as a benefit. The hoarding comes in waves, and when you clean out your inventory to get that cool brew or silver sword, it's really satisfying. =)

I love your mention for giving players information in the game that they will otherwise look up online anyway. Collectible maps in open world games have been a brilliant addition for someone like me who has absolutely printed off maps from the internet and manually crossed out each think I pick up. Spreading that idea to other areas of the design is a great idea.

I havent specificly thought about this yet, but I know it from myself, so... What I did in one instance when the player had no access to a shop anymore... I made sure to give a bigger amount of chests or some healing items lying around on tables. So if they forgot to shop beforehand they're not completely lost. But, if they DID shop, and they have x amount of said healing item, they will obtain gold instead. This gold is less than the price of the item, but since you can reinvest gold in any way you want and selling healingitems would loose you 50% of its price I think it's a pretty fair trade. This also happens really early in the game, so I hope I can take away the player's fear somewhat..

I think Pokémon fans can confirm we all have this problem with the master ball.

In every play through of three houses, I try to slap as many relics on one unit as possible just for the hell of it.

This was fun timing! I just got into vintage Dragon Quest, and was playing DQ2 when I came across something like this. As you can't regenerate MP in DQ1 or early in DQ2 I was extremely revealed when I discovered a Prayer Ring atop a tower, which would replenish MP. The problem? It's a one-use item. Well darn. An hour or so later I was climbing another tower and I had just gotten safely to the end when I got ambushed by a large party of the worst things that could have come. Out of HP, out of MP, so close to the goal. Then I remembered, the Prayer Ring. The one time to use it, it had to be now! And I did. And I won. We got our second wind and pushed on through to safety. And THAT story is probably what I'll remember most from the game. I found that optional ring, I chose to use it at that point in time and it saved me. Now it's all in the past as I move on. I reckon people waiting for a perfect time to use something is the same problem as people waiting for that perfect partner, or that perfect job or that perfect sword to throw themselves heroically on, but here's the thing: there are no perfects in this world. A bowl might be most useful when it is empty, and a child might have near infinite potential. But you gotta fill that bowl with something, and you gotta grow up. And sometimes you need that MP to kill that god damned beholder.

I see this problem in the cosmetic aspect of Ninjala: weapon's skins are consumables that only lasts one game, after that they disappear and you have to wait for another drop of that specific skin. It's such a shame because it discourages the use of the skins that you like because you never know when you'll have another drop again and what's the point on having awesome weapon's skins if they'll only gather dust in your inventory.

I´m replaying octopath again, and I´m trying to hoard far less, especially when SP is involved. Holding on to SP restores is a habit I have because quite a few games have limited ether-type items, or they are too expensive to constantly use vs random encounter mobs. Even though the SP restorative in Octopath is always buyable, fairly affordable, and can stock to 99, during my first main playthrough I hardly used them. The game gives you a few SP regen tools and thieves can both steal and restribute SP. But once I realized it make zero sense at all I just resolved to be as petty as possible and spam the restoratives whenever possible. and it turns out you have to try really hard even make a sizable dent before you can stock up again. Octopath actually really lenient resource wise, but it shows just how strong a default hoarding habit can be. Players don't even always properly experiment if a resource turns scarce or not. Tales of teaches you to use the healing items often well enough. They cap out quickly, drop often from enemies an chests, but they are also percentage based. This means you eventually get a feeling of how much an item does for you. With many games using MP/SP, the healing items have a set point based value, which stresses people out whenever the more costly spells and abilities are involved. Because the value of items and spells changes throughout the game, it's easy to stay stuck some suboptimal or overly cautious approach that you needed before. With tales you quickly learn to use a lot of them to keep your combat going. Writing about it I think the gameplay cycles surrounding SP/MP are worthy of a video all on their own. So many games have both good and awkward gameplay system with spending and regaining them, and restoratives naturally a large part of it. With items in general, I wonder of a few players also just dislike basing their strategies around items in general, instead of mere hoarding. Quite often items are either a bit weak or a fallback option, or it's the reverse and your your potions are so efficient you never really need your fancy healing spells, which often look cooler/more plausible and can be more engaging to plan around. Compared to that items break immersion a bit, if the game isn't that centered around having to use them that is. For example Pokemon I eventually stopped using healing items mid battle entirely, unless the enemy trainer start using them, because they are so strong, and the setting makes it so easy to headcanon sportsmanship. It's something I also see other players around the web mention doing. And beyond mere healing items, you can also spam enough revival items outstall any storyline opponent, and you can buy strong stat boost inducing items as well. Since pokemon stat boosts are both stackable, and last for the remainder of the battle after,wards it snowballs quickly . recent games for some reason buffed to give a 2 stage boost, when even the single stage was strong enough. This is all slighty of topic, but it might be why players tend to only use items when they really have to.

Amusingly, the earlier Paper Mario handles this decently well. You have a small inventory and when you pick up too many, the game makes you quite literally throw away an item which feels like such a waste. On top of that there's a lot of damage going out, which is most easily mitigated using items or FP. Throwing a status on all enemies, restoring FP for a big AoE bomb or straight up using an AoE item that kills them is often the most turn efficient way of handling problems. ... That said when I first played the game when it came out I was running back to heart blocks and grinding levels instead. You could argue I was a dumb kid, but it is also kind of a sign just this is not exactly the perfect solution.

Astral Chain has an interesting item system. You have healing items that only last for the mission you're in which you can pick up and healing items that move between missions that cost money. So the player is encouraged to use the freebies by the end of the mission before the ones that transfer, almost like the ones you can buy are the back-up healing items. What's more is that you can heal by landing a finishing move on an opponent, so if you're really in the hole with health, you can work to kill an enemy to get a boost.

Personally, I like games that limit your inventory in a meaningful way. Tales of Vesperia comes to mind - although, being able to carry 15 of the stronger healing items is a bit much. This, in my opinion, balances difficulty very well and incentivizes usage, as it is generally easy to get most types of restorative items at a shop. In general, I think ease of access may be the most important factor. Easy access, but limited inventory - the limited inventory preserves the resource management aspect and makes over-hoarding flat impossible - it also makes it far easier to balance dififculty appropriately. Ease of access significantly enhances the strategic aspect of item use. And the next factor is, of course... challenge. Many games don't really offer the amount of challenge required to incentivize item use. The Etrian Odyssey series blends all those aspects well together - inventory is limited, items are reasonably valuable, but you always know how to get them... ANd the game gets hard at a number of points, making you want to use items.

'Hoarding is a pitfall' - some well known guy in the Fire Emblem community

"How to stop hoarding" Me, who's played MH for years and crafts more things than I'll ever use: "My children shall be better than I ever was"

Hoarding potions has been a problem for me ever since I got to chapter 4 or 5 in Final Fantasy XIII. I make sure to keep some around so I can heal without switching paradigms or consuming ATB charges, but I tend to stress out when I get below, say, 20. EDIT: Games where healing items restore a fixed amount of HP can counteract hoarding by providing no benefit to saving items outside of battle. Case in point: Pokémon.

I genuinely love FF8 and while I personally feel that magic is more freely usable than people like to imagine, as the game can be beaten without the need to grind massive stacks of magic for stat junctions or anything like that, and that magic can be created very quickly on demand with the right GF abilities, I do understand why people get turned off by the design and have a hard time not farming it because they feel the NEED to. As a way I'd like to see it changed, a very simple fix would be to make magic still stackable to 99, but stat junctions aren't affected by any more over say 25 or so. This means the core system of experimenting with junctions stays, but the player is still free to spend their magic more liberally.

I was doing a Terraria playthrough when this came out. I feel called out.

I can’t believe you’ve called out my animal crossing storage in this way

I keep my old low level equipments as some sort of "memory" even though I don't remember doing anything great with them

I didn't choose the hoarding life, the hoarding life chose me. I'm a hoarder in real life and in games and I feel no shame lol

I love the system in Fire Emblem Fates where weapons of the same type can be combined to create a stronger weapon. That way the hoarding of weapons has been incorporated into the main gameplay.

One important question is: when is (and isn't) hoarding a problem? I think it's clearly problematic in most turn-based RPGs - it's both "a system you don't engage with" (like status effects...) and "makes the game trivial" (although - as you note - it's not that hard to begin with). On the flip side, hoarding is kind of a natural part of many crafting-centric games (think Minecraft or Terraria, rather than just those with "crafting subsystems" like Xenoblade), and - depending on what is being hoarded - I don't think it's really an issue there (it's just how you progress). [Although Terraria's potions and potion ingredients can certainly be hoarded...] It's also worth noting that there's two kinds of hoarding: active hoarding of good items and passive hoarding of bad items. "Saving good items" can be resolved by making the game hard enough that you want to use them on boss battles, but there's nothing that will make me want to use one of my many potions in a late Pokemon game - there's just no point to it. I can think of ways to fix that ["auto-sell cheap items" options are often nice, for instance], but it's a much more nontrivial issue to get rid of... although again, it's debatable if it is an issue.

Wow, this puts a whole new perspective on gaming design for me and how much hoarding can be an issue. Just like you mentioned, Final Fantasy is one of the main culprits of encouraging hoarding.

Its kind of intetesting thinking about how hoarding can take different forms. I'm honestly a little too fast and loose with ammo, health kits, and mana items. But you show me a rechargeable resources that requires management (a la Dishonored) and I play super conservatively because the thought I'm losing out on a free resource kills me.

Stop giving me consumables and give me abilities with cooldowns instead. I'm way more inclined to use something if I KNOW that i'll get it back.

This really helped! Did this in BOTW with the foods and weapons. I ended up never using half of them.

I hoarded the heck out of my rations while playing MGS3. Only the items you hunt or forage go bad, which encourages you to stock up on the rations and other food that doesn't expire. This leads to a disincentive to experiment with the other food options, which often had neat secondary effects like the glowing mushrooms that recharge batteries, or poisonous items that debuff enemies.

One thing I find interesting is when I realize I'm hoarding something that isnt even an item. Games that have some sort of powered up form, like kingdom hearts two or god of war, I tend to hoard. What if I need this power boost in the next boss fight? Same idea, but it's not an item being hoarded. Neat video!

FF7 has an “accidental” solution in the form of the W-Item glitch Maybe not so accidental anymore since the glitch is still present in modern ports of the game Being able to regenerate your resources easily, be it through some sort of duplication trick or through being able to buy items, is a great way to reduce the anxiety that causes hoarding

"Hoarding is a Pitfall." Mekkah

"5 of each crafting item" Oh, you sweet summer child. Other than regular Wood and Gold, I have 10 of each crafting item in AC:NH because I have a problem.

The number of times I have died in a game with several healing potions on me...

I'll always remember not using the BFG ever in the game RAGE, because I was saving the ammo for the final boss. Turned out... *spoilers for a now relatively old game* That in the end there is no final boss, just some waves of regular enemies. So I finished the game in the hardest difficulty without ever using the coolest weapon (probably?)

"This is a tough fight!" "use the items" "not yet" "its the final boss" "those items are not being saved for the FINAL boss, but for the optional SUPERBOSS" "Oh, OK."

One of the biggest things for me is hoarding stat increasing items, because I can't decide which characters should get them until I know I've got all the characters.

my favourite is the system used in KH; you can still hoard 99 of each consumable like in FF, but the genius is that you're only allowed to take a few into any given battle, almost perfect balance between item management and strategy, without imposing strict inventory limits like the resident evil or mother games for example

Rare candy in pokemon is a perfect example

Xenoblade chronicles DOES have a small item hoarding issue (not a big one, but it can annoy completionists). Loot gained from monsters is pretty annoying to work with sometimes since most of it is just selling fodder, but there's a lot of side quests that require that very loot. The game does attempt to circumvent this with visions of the future sometimes showing you when an item will be used in a quest later, but those don't happen every time. Thankfully, getting the items again isn't usually a huge pain, but there are some quests that require some really rare stuff (looking at you, juju). This is why I couldn't afford basic equipment in the last town.